Dysfunctional Congress 'worse' than ever?

Even on an individual level, members of Congress are casting wary glances at each other — as the newly elected bash the institution and veteran lawmakers say they can’t fathom what motivates their junior colleagues.

“This is the first time that I can remember being confronted by members of the Congress, my colleagues, who say, ‘I don’t care if I get reelected or not, I want to cut the budget by $100 billion or whatever,’” said a bewildered Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), who was first elected to Congress in 1964. “I’ve never seen that kind of a member before. … It’s a dangerous point of view from my perspective.”

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Rep. Mike Pompeo, a freshman Republican from Kansas who has never before served in elective office, explained that it is more a matter of “deep division” and “two sharp worldviews” between the parties than a lack of trust in specific party leaders.

But Pompeo questions what Obama, Geithner and even House GOP leaders are saying about the debt limit: It must be raised — and soon — to avert an economic calamity.

“There’s nothing in my judgment that indicates that Aug. 2 is a magic moment,” said Pompeo, who argues that a true financial meltdown will occur only if investors conclude that the government isn’t serious about repaying the debts it already has incurred.

The American public has seen what is happening on Capitol Hill, and so far, it doesn’t like it.

Approval ratings for Congress are at 17 percent, up slightly from the low point of 13 percent in December — right after the November elections — but down significantly from the spring.

Most of the time, it seems Republicans and Democrats aren’t even speaking the same language. House GOP leaders are working feverishly to appease a party base that wants the president’s health care law repealed, Medicare and Medicaid benefits slashed, business regulations overturned and income tax rates frozen or lowered — although most of their agenda will never be implemented with Democrats running the Senate and the White House. Democrats, for their part, are trying to motivate their own base, which is unhappy with Obama and any moderates who want to cut deals with GOP leaders.

Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.), who is suing Obama for not seeking authorization from Congress for the Libya military campaign, cautions that “most of the tough votes” are still to happen during coming months, meaning he is not ready to write off the 112th Congress — at least not yet.

“It’s a very fair question,” Capuano said when asked whether any leader from either party can control the House or Senate at this point. “Many of us are asking ourselves similar questions.”

Capuano added, “We all know that some of the new members … combine them with some of the people who’ve been there, you add to that the mix of personal ambition, and you have a potentially volatile situation.”

On the Senate side, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is pursuing a strategy of nonengagement. He hasn’t passed, or even offered, a 2012 budget, has given no indication that he intends to consider annual spending bills and has made sure that no legislation of consequence hits the Senate floor. The Senate has voted only 17 times so far in June, with nearly half of those being nominations or cloture motions.

Reid’s imperative is clear: Avoid the tough votes that could cost his party seats, and the majority, in the 2012 election.

Somehow, the most basic functions of Congress and the president — providing for government operations and safeguarding the nation’s credit — are now regarded as herculean political tasks.

“One of the greatest abdications of our fundamental responsibility is that the power of the purse has been relegated to continuing resolutions,” said Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, a former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush.

Yet some veteran lawmakers insist that all will work out in the end.

“We’ve seen this movie before,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). “It seems that when there’s an impasse, there’s always a breakthrough. I wouldn’t give up on Congress yet.”

Readers' Comments (733)

bash obama? have you been paying attention? the justice dept is unmder investigation for letting guns cross the border into mexico,which so far have been implicated in killing over 150 people including a usa border agent. you'd have to be a complete idiot not to see this reaches into the whitehouse. corruption is written all over this administration.

But it was good for a few laughs. With the debt crisis, Congress should stay and work - while he is taking vacation in Martha's Vineyard. The corporate jet class - his plan that cost the taxpayer close to a trillion - encouraged people to buy corporate jets.

Obama is so out of touch - one has to ask a question: Who does he think is the President of the USA?

He's in so far over his head that he doesn't know what to do, so he defaults to petty community organizer class warfare demagoguery. Yesterday's press conference was absolutely pathetic. Obama is trying to lead from behind, desperately attempting to blame shift his incompetence away. It's the behavior one would expect from a poorly raised adolescent .

What a loser.

What a national embarrassment.

What a national disgrace.

Perhaps Congress should step up and do the job that Obama is falling to do.

“I don’t think there’s a single person in the United States who thinks that Congress is working right now,” said former Rep. Artur Davis, a moderate Alabama Democrat who retired last November. “There’s a sense that the partisanship is worse than it’s ever been.”

A Libya vote last week is a case in point.

TeamPOLITICO: Jun. 30, 2011 - 4:39 AM EST

On the Senate side, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is pursuing a strategy of nonengagement. He hasn’t passed, or even offered, a 2012 budget, has given no indication that he intends to consider annual spending bills and has made sure that no legislation of consequence hits the Senate floor. The Senate has voted only 17 times so far in June, with nearly half of those being nominations or cloture motions.

Most of Congress is upset over Obama’s unilateral use of force in Libya, but the House GOP leadership couldn’t round up enough votes to cut off funding for fighting for what the president insists is not a military action.

The extension of the PATRIOT Act was another example of governing by procrastination — Congress passed the bill only when law enforcement officials warned of a renewed terror threat if it failed to act.

And most seriously of all, despite dire warnings of economic calamity from Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the U.S. government seems to be stumbling toward defaulting on the nation’s $14.4 trillion national debt in early August.

Politicos consern is touching...at most. I do not remember Poltico make any stand, nor lack of such when the extansion of the patriot act was made--4 years! thank you (without one critical report, funny how Scott, pull my pants down, Wong still praises Politicos and MSM silence on this?--> but who cares right, it is 4 years now, so no worries about MSM and Politicos conduct on the issue. Not at all--> the page was full of this "propaganda" ;

Conyers' comment about says it all. What kind of idiot would be guided by anything other than being re-elected?He needs to retire so that he can attend to his trashed home that's devaluing his neighborhood in Detroit.

So our irresponsible president who traveled to three fund raisers last week rather than engage in debt talks slips into the lecturing parent mode chastizing republicans for not going along with his desire to continue to spend over $1.50 for every $1.00 than comes in. Ya, it's those corporate jet owners who aren't paying thier fair share!

George Will has argued before that a dysfunctional Congress is a good Congress because it is a gridlocked Congress. He claimed when Congress passes bills, usually they do more damage to our country than good. Hence, a do-nothing Congress is good news. Well, Mr. Will must be ecstatic with this Congress, for it is in the running for Most Do-Nothing Congress Ever. Mr. Will, of course, is a conservative and conservatives cringe at the thought of change -- any and every change. This makes conservatives seen neurotic, for the one constancy of human existence is that everything constantly changes. (You might object: "But diamonds are forever." Nope, they change, too, and eventually wear away. They only seem "forever" because they last much longer than we do.) Thus, even Republicans change. We've seen them expeditiously -- even perfunctorily -- pass raise-the-debt-ceiling bills for Bush/Cheney many times (to the tune of some four trillion dollars) and now they act like it's almost un-American. Maybe they'll change back and finally do the responsible thing and raise the debt ceiling. Republicans may renege on their own personal debts but they should not try to make it The American Way: We believe in paying our debts. (We don't even believe in threatening not to pay them or pretending everything will be fine if we don't pay them.)

Isn't it the traditional responsibility of the President to introduce a budget to Congress? When Obama is able to bring a budget to Congress, then he has the right to say Congress is not doing their job. But until then, shut the f*** up!

Dysfunctional Congress? OK. Partly. The House has passed a budget. The House has been handling questions, problems, Medicare and a bunch of other things. Their solutions may be debatable - although I agree in principle.

Hmmmm... What do the last three Congresses all have in common? Wait, I know. Obama has been in the White House.

Do you suppose the partisan, left-wing press could possibly make a connection here? Nope, doesn't look like it.

Look - the basic problem is this - Obama wants to turn the U.S. into the kind of failed Socialist state that we are seeing coming apart in Greece. Anyone who saw the leftist mob take over the capitol building in Wisconsin when the governor asked them to pay a little more into their pension fund will realize that are ALREADY beginning to unravel - just like in Greece. Let's hope that we can get this marxist out of the White House and get this economy straightened out before it gets too much worse than it already is.

I'm sure everyone has seen that disgusting campaign speech the pretender in the White House gave yesterday, blaiming Congress for his failure to do his job. "I've been here" he said "I've done Bin Laden and the Greek crisis".

Yeah, right.

He didn't even know about the Bin Laden thing until it happened. They had to drag him in off the golf course and lend him a coat so he could appear in the photos like he was in charge or something. But we all knew better. No one was fooled but the press.

And that Greek crisis. Heckuva job you're doing THERE, Barry. Rioting in the streets. Welfare bums demanding their government handout when they've run out of money. Yeah, I'm sure that's the same thing Obama has in mind for us.

The community organizer is in charge, over his headand he has failed terribly. Remember the dems-you don't need any business or executive experience to be president. Well 52 million fools gave us this idiot. Now comes the blame game-Americans don't much care for that game. The muslim socialist's economic policies were doomed to fail because they were wrong to start with. Now he has the nerve to say the money is spent now we must back it up. Ray Charles could have seen this one coming.

I am a voter. I voted against the Democratic Party that passed ObamaCare in the last congress. Obviously, many other voters cast such votes. We were able to get rid of Speaker Pelosi and Democratic control of the House. We were unable to vote out enough Democratic Senators to get rid of Majority Leader Reid, but we're working on it. An impass is far superior to complete control of all the levers of power by the Democratic Party, or by any party for that matter. President Obama has to go; I'm just afraid of of some of the people who want to replace him.

Reagan worked with a Democrat controlled congress, Bush the father worked with a Democrat congress, Clinto worked with a Republican congress, Bush the son worked with a Democrat congress. All of them passed major legislation even though the other party controlled much of the government. Obama cannot and he doesn't know why. Here is a clue. Has any other president castigated the SCOTUS during a state of the union address? Has any other president envited members of the opposition party to hear him speak, only to castigate them during the speach? Obama can't help but to poke anyone who doesn't agree with him in the eye and then he expects to be able to work together towards anything? He is the problem.